Mai at the Predators' Ball (2 page)

I want a perfect body, a perfect soul, I want
then
I am loving angels instead
, why, why does this time have to come at all thought Petites Cendres, the time for loving angels and nothing else, what was the point of a perfect body only to have it tripped into infinity,
yes I want a perfect body, a perfect soul
, and
o
h baby don’t go breaking my heart
, Petites Cendres joined in too while passersby respectfully greeted Yinn at the front,
oh baby
, it was him, it was Fatalité, her body once more shrunk back into our cradle in the shadows, on this earth though, oh on this earth I did find some peace, Yinn sang beneath her breath or perhaps it was only a lamentation, no way to know for sure,
perfect body, perfect soul, I want, I want
he sang, in the cabaret when Fatalité danced and sang all night, burlesque send-ups, off-colour jibes at the audience, that’s what got all the shameless laughs, she partied and never once tripped running up the steep stairs to the stage,
love me, hug me, kiss me
she sang, our secret intimacy that said all the things that shouldn’t be said, her spiteful jokes, vodka in hand, let’s party,
love me, hug me, kiss me
, when vengeful love shakes itself free and us with it, he loved his songs, tunes with no meaning at all,
love me, hug me, kiss me
, a perfect body and a perfect soul now atrophied and unrecognizable, with only the angels to love, thought Petites Cendres, and Dieudonné buzzing in his ears, you see the rings around your eyes, the sad expression, see that’s what happens when you spend your nights out on the sidewalk or in the sauna at the Porte du Baiser instead of at home asleep, Dieudonné looked at him wondering what could be done with such simple candor in the face of utter collapse and destruction all around him, Christ what can we do with you when you just won’t listen the doctor said, okay look, I’ve got to take the girls to school early for their morning gymnastics, no idea what it takes to be a father, have you Petites Cendres, well it’s one joy you’re never going to have, are you, no straight and narrow for you either, Porte du Baiser Saloon, there it was right on Petites Cendres’ vest lettered white on black,
WHERE REAL MEN COME TO PLAY
, trust me, rushing up and down the stairs like that, Fatalité had to be on speed, speed and all that other crap, your beautiful sinister Fatalité, that’s what did it, you know that don’t you,
I want a perfect body, a perfect soul
sang Yinn, the wind snapping the flags along the street, hail to you Fatalité he said, through the circle of fire, your soul be at peace in a world where no one else’s can, Fatalité, we love and kiss you,
hug me, kiss me
Yinn sang, oh Fatalité was loved as she deserved, so loved, thought Petites Cendres walking with the others to the dock shoulder to shoulder with Robbie who was going to do the evening shows instead and who was a half-breed like Petites Cendres himself — though twenty years younger — a new recruit he thought, money tucked into the laces and frills down his front, a cruel spectacle of ruined youth, and legs that would get him through anything, so hard to see, Yinn’s heart was his without begging, years piled on years he said thoughtlessly, that’s what’s waiting for us, shut up said Petites Cendres, you snotty kid, Petites Cendres felt like asking him why he needed rubber dildos and the answer would have been that it caught guys’ eyes when he was dancing, so you just shove those things anywhere anytime under that micro-skirt of yours Petites Cendres would have shot back, with all your talent I wonder why, though obviously, twenty years younger, nothing was off limits to Robbie, vulgarity was all part of the show Robbie said tonight as he untangled his thick hair, curling and uncurling it at will, he was in for a long reign as the tempestuous, desirable, damnable animal of all night-time prowls, oh no this picture was too much for Petites Cendres to bear, galling how much imagination these new recruits had . . . Yinn dressing Robbie up in wilder and wilder outfits, modelling him to his own taste, slipping his arm around his waist, cozying up to him saying you know, everything, I mean everything, looks so fabulous on you Robbie, she’d say beneath the docks where you could hear the students on break manhandling the boats as they smacked into the waves, should’ve yelled at them to quiet down, Yinn still leading the procession, orchids clutched like tiny weights across his chest, Petites Cendres brushed shoulders with Robbie, far more muscular than he even in the tight dress he wore to troll the sidewalks at night, the same scorpion tattooed on it as Jason, Yinn’s husband, yes husband, and just as muscular, let’s take a pause and pray, we’re already by the sea so do we really need to pray as well said Robbie, I mean do we really have to pray after all this walking especially in these shoes, do you really think Fatalité would want all this performance, she was just a simple sex-obsessed girl after all, it’s about respect said Petites Cendres, and you’re only wearing those party shoes for show anyway, Yinn’s the theatre whiz shot back Robbie, look at him strutting it like the ocean is his backdrop, bumming around and looking for excitement, hell, even he doesn’t know who he is, do you or me or any of us have any idea where he’s from, Christ my feet are killing me and we really have to pray as well, that’s why Fatalité did this in the first place, to save us all this trouble, I’m telling you she knew Yinn would be lost without all this showboating, he’s loving every minute of it, the crowd by the sea under an overcast sky, the basket of rose petals and orchids for everyone, just so Yinn doesn’t get bored, because God knows Yinn mustn’t be bored, when she’s bored she lifts her skirt and does pirouettes in the street like a spinning top, all kinds of crap just to be provocative and why, because she can’t stand being bored, anything’s better, even obscene provocation, goddammit my feet hurt and the wind’s so strong I can’t hear a word of Jason’s prayers anyway, I mean death is the greatest thing that can happen to a person so no way should it be boring, right, and while Robbie gossiped away, Petites Cendres standing right next to him saw a flash of about fifty young men tied up on a Thai beach all looking like Yinn and staring at him in a way he just couldn’t define, soon after being refused sanctuary they would immediately reboard their makeshift boat to go home again and drown on the way, never mind their being as young and handsome as Yinn, they were condemned to die at sea, their hands tied behind their backs, trussed like parcels and knowing they would die on board those rickety sieves, and that was the way it should be, out of sight out of mind, for the authorities, Cambodia and Laos didn’t want them either, so into the deep with them — Gulf of Siam, Andaman Sea, whatever — leave those sneaky illegals to the silent muddy waves out of sight, and with them the mystery of Yinn’s birth told to Petites Cendres this way, so here I am the only one left alive because I broke free, that’s how come, broke the chain and the rope with my teeth, my servitude along with them Petites Cendres, and Fatalité had her story too Robbie chimed in, a sister from Arizona for instance, we never even knew she had one; when they got near the water, Yinn reminded them they had to be back at the saloon before ten, it was still a night like any other, drama over Fatalité or not, Robbie said, things have to stay on the rails, that’s Yinn, order through and through, and he makes no secret of it, he has a mother somewhere too, he conceals nothing but confides nothing said Petites Cendres, the Gulf of Siam, the Andaman Sea, all lost in the silence of water said Robbie, a Korean mother, a military father, two brothers in California yet he reveals so little said Petites Cendres, a goddess in the Temple of Obscure Divinities he thought to himself, well he wasn’t going to confide in that blabbermouth Robbie, so another numbing monologue comes out of him, better pray as Jason asked for the peaceful repose of Fatalité’s soul, but none of it means anything said Robbie, I mean what does any of us know about it right, this is a big deal considering Fatalité liked such simple things, like eating and drinking, a helluva big deal, I bet if he knew he’d never have left Arizona, really just food and drink anywhere, even the sauna, leg up to get some attention, remember that Petites Cendres, Yinn’s mother, Mom or Mama Yinn, used to say bow slightly when talking to a lady and be polite, oh she wasn’t happy about his marriage to Jason, just a worthless scrap of paper, what a pain and Yinn with his heart broken three times already she’d say over and over, three boys, three hurts, and this dissolute Jason drinking too much on Friday nights, immoderate in his sense of order and justice though, Yinn’s idea was to treat everyone, rich or poor, to a meal on Sundays, but not every night for God’s sake said his mother, what on earth is he thinking, marriage for love and being sad next day because he’s fooled around on you, now is love really such a good reason, she asks her son some days, he’s forgotten about his soldier father who dumped me with three boys and a pittance, Yinn learned to sew because I had to make all their clothes, he even designed them for his dolls, and his older brothers just laughed at him; and even as a kid he had those long eyelashes over that special blue, like his father’s eyes, not really blue or green or grey but his own colour, oh those eyes, and what eyes to cloak his soul and shield him from everyone when he set about dressing and undressing his dolls, and I always kept a lookout for fabrics and cloths I could find inexpensively in the stores — already a makeup artist, he had to be powdering, adding glitter to the cheeks of his dolls, outlining their long lashes — and I told him don’t listen to your brothers, you’ve always been the sweetest, the most gentle, so don’t listen to them my Thai prince, you are so very gifted, and don’t ever forget we have nothing, that your mother does sewing for the rich, nothing, we have nothing at all, between us our work will get us through this, and now here he is getting married to Jason, I mean of course love may be a good enough reason, you are going to get hurt, and what will I do my exile boy in your pain, we never complained of our hunger, looking at me in silence with those eyes suddenly downcast in that way you know so well, not at all like the other boys, more distant, removed from an ancient civilization that no longer survives, and now he wants to please Jason whose wife he is, femme fatale in jeans that fit too tight and crush all that nature has given him, knee-high boots, a black bra and a white vest over it, knotted at the stomach, all just to please Jason, forgetting perhaps how he used to dress, a true prince though we may have been poor, no, love alone is not enough reason to get married, that’s what I’m always telling him, this was how Yinn’s mother went on about her cabaret-star boy as she stitched his clothes for the show, stringing pearl necklaces, guiding him as she once had much earlier in his costume designs, tiny next to him, a bee and a deer, sometimes stinging Jason, he’s going to hurt you so badly you’ll never get over it and then who’s going to bind your wounds when you’re so all alone, because I’m not always going to be here, so trust in my mother’s instinct, I won’t always be here, believe in my mother’s instinct, who is going to bind your wounds when I’m gone and you’re all alone, I can barely see now, you need glasses Mama that’s all, Yinn would reply, and when I buy them for you, you refuse to wear them Mama, oh no I’m not going to start complaining like all those old ladies who fall in love with you in your shows said Yinn’s mother, if their sons were like you they’d be so worried about the future they’d never notice time passing them by, what’s going to become of him that pirouette of a son of mine, what’s going to become of him they’d say, one day this way, one day the other, a pirouette from boy to girl with beautiful shoulder-length black hair, with no concern for rules of any kind, no oh no they’d be preoccupied with him all the time, time passing them by, and all those strange women, you let too many women caress you, yes Yinn’s mother would say, I’m in perpetual combustion, that’s why they come to me Yinn would say — boys and men I can understand, but so many women as well — there for a night and then gone, do be careful son, the split that vents our passion is always there, wide open, so do be careful, especially if you want to marry that Jason, his mother remembered him barely starting out as a delinquent, first admiring that shiny sewing machine she could not afford in the shop, then him setting it up in their modest apartment, you’ve got to take it back where you got it, I’m worn out with worry about you, do you want to get us thrown out of this country, delinquent, thief, and no father to protect you, just gone off with the first woman to wander by, and the shiny sewing machine in the shadows, sew, Mama, sew, suture, so the needles no longer hurt your hands, you’re going to take this right back or you’re going to prison she had told him, the shininess of the machine lighting their misery, it was for you Mama so your fingers would stop bleeding, that’s what the child said pirouetting around and around with my dresses and jewels on, the little there was left over from times past, no more jewels and dresses, I had to work for rich people and I took him along with me and kept an eye on him so he wouldn’t lift anything, sewing machines in rich people’s houses, always keeping an eye out and putting back whatever he’d taken, do you want to get us thrown out of this house, out of this whole country, out on the street with all three of my sons, is that what you’re aiming for Yinn, always this obsession with sewing machines, even in the masters’ houses, a woman brings up her kids by herself, worried sick at seeing him grow up with a hankering for silks and fabrics, and when will he ever have enough of this stuff, and us having nothing at all or so little, his father running off with the first woman he cast eyes on, and this was how she spoke of him to Robbie on the wharf as the wind whipped their faces, and he in turn said to Petites Cendres, remember how much Fatalité loved this song